GND Media

Fossil fuels and the companies that extract and distribute them are everywhere. Those companies seep into society from powering our homes, to buying off politicians and owning the sports teams we love. When these levithans take over our passions and interests, what should we do about it?

This week on Working Class Voices Ads is joined by Michael  from Game Changer, the campaign to get football clubs to drop fossil fuel sponsorships. They discuss Micheal's journey from watching documentaries to organising football fans against fossil fuel companies, How those oil companies capture culture, and the challenges of bringing football fans into the climate movement. 

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This week we are organising for power, in more ways than one.

Andrew is joined by Lawrence Wang (@ltothewang), a member of the Democratic Socialists of America (@DemSocialists), and on the Eco-socialist working group  for the New York City Chapter (@Nycdsa). Lawrence explains how the DSA in New York State organised and passed a bill that means the state has to develop publicly owned renewable energy generation. We discuss the DSA's mission and how it approaches politics in the USA, the tactics and strategy that got their legalisation passed and how they ended up running AGAINST one of the sponsors of the bill they were pushing through the congress!

Cheat sheet for the episode
DSA: Democratic Socialist of America
BPRA : Build Public Renewables Act
NYA : New York Power Authority
IRA: Inflation Reduction Act

Links
Democratic Socialists of America
DSA New York Chapter
NYC DSA Eco-socialists

Lawrence's recent article in Jacobin about the BPRA
https://jacobin.com/2023/07/new-york-bpra-green-new-deal-public-renewable-energy

Shout Outs
Stop Cop City
Pine Tree Power
Our Power coalition
Maine DSA

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This week Ads is joined by Fraser Stewart. Fraser is the just transition lead at Regen, a non for profit focused on pushing the UK towards cleaner energy.  They discuss how weirdly similar their lives have been as working class lads in the environment movement,  how the working class manage in middle class spaces, what are the best ways to talk about climate to people who are already struggling and how starting with reality is better than rhetoric.


Links
Frasers' article "New Tools" 
https://fraserjfstewart-17.medium.com/new-tools-29028eacf86a

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If you were to wander lonely as a cloud in England, chances are that you would find yourself on privately owned lands and committing a civil offence. if you were to do the same in Scotland however, you would be totally within your right to do so.  So what gives? Why don't the English have access to the nature and countryside of God's green earth?‍

This week we are joined by land access campaigner  and orgnaniser at Right to Roam, Jon Moses. Ads and Jon discuss the history of land being taken into private ownership, the difference between land access rights in England and Scotland, what actually might happen if you illegally trespass (spoiler not as much as you might think!) and Jon updates us on the access rights saga of Dartmoor national park.

 



LINKS
Right to Roam campaign website

Shout out
Daniel Grimstom, and congrats on the your play Corpse light. 

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Welcome to season two of Working Class Voices on GND Media.  This podcast is where we let the working class speak for themselves, on how to combat climate breakdown.

We believe the working class will be the ones to fundamentally drive the transition from fossil fuels, and only with their collective power could it ever be a truly just transition.

This season will focus on those from the working class who are already in the climate movement.

This week Ads is joined by Emma River Roberts.  They discuss why Just Stop Oil's actions miss the point when it comes to accelerating climate action, Emma's experience of being working class in the climate movement, Emma's view of the Labour Party right now and what needs to be done to properly link the working class and climate movements together.

Links
Ad's article " Happy flowers Don't Win" on GND Media. 

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We're back! And not a moment too soon.  After a summer of international extreme weather and political inaction, we're kicking things off combining science and activism. 

This week we are joined by the co-founder of Scientists for XR Dr Aaron Thierry.  We discuss why July this year was so hot globally, how climate scientist are portrayed in the media and whether their expertise gives them more standing in the media. Ad also digs into what revolution means to scientists, and if we can find hope in science. 

Links
Kevin Anderson's talk that inspired Aaron.
https://www.lse.ac.uk/lse-player?id=1208

Scientists for XR
https://www.scientistsforxr.earth/

Shout outs
Dr. Rose Abramoff 

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This episode was first broadcast on June 14th 2021

This week on the show we are joined by Dr Keston Perry. Keston is a lecturer in economics and political economy at University of West of England (UWE).

We discuss in practical terms what reparations would mean, the historical racism embedded into Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal and how a Green New Deal must be designed in that context, as well as the reverberations of the Haitian Revolution and how taking a paternalistic approach to defeating climate change won't bring justice to those most effected by it.


Links
Sorting out the Mixed Economy by Amy Offner
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/ehr.12988

How Europe Underdeveloped Africa by Walter Rodney
https://www.versobooks.com/books/2785-how-europe-underdeveloped-africa

William Sandy Darity on reparations 
https://reparations4slavery.com/william-sandy-darity-jr/


Shout outs 
Professor Maxine Burkett 

Asad Rehman
@chilledasad100

Alex O'keefe- Ex Sunrise Movement leader for holding the movement to a higher standard
@_dotgov

Alex's Thread on the situation at Sunrise
https://twitter.com/_dotgov/status/1402249288818769920

Cycling UK- for their campaign Big bike revival 
@WeAreCyclingUK

The fantastic organisations supporting refugees across the UK to mark Refugee Week 2021
@RefugeeAction
@GMIAU
@AmnestyUK
@FreefromTorture
@AsylumMatters
@FootballMuseum

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This episode was first broadcast on November 9th 2020
Note: This episode was recorded before the results of the U.S election were published. 

How do we define the success of a city? Or a country? Or human civilisation all together? The last 60 years we've been tied to GDP, growth, trade surpluses, amounts of debt, the strength of currency. Economic strength has been the barometer for the majority of the world to look to when we want to know how we're doing. If stock and shares are high surely there can't be any problems? When an economy bifurcates massively between the haves and the have nots,  and to become a haver you need to extract from the environment considerably, measures of economic superiority really start to miss the point. So what's the alternative? 

Joining us on the podcast this week is Professor Julia Steinberger ( @JKSteinberger). Julia is a Professor in social ecology and ecological economics at l'Université de Lausanne in Switzerland and is currently working on the next IPCC report on climate change . We discuss the links between consumption and capitalist affluence, how epicurean philosophy has informed economics of the past 50 years and the balancing act of extraction for a greener future. 


Shout outs

Councillor Jon Burke
@jonburkeUK

Marcus Rashford
@MarcusRashford

Swiss campaign for corporate accountability


**LINKS**
Scientists warning on affluence (co-authored by Julia)
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-020-16941-y

The Flawed science of deep adaptation 
https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/oureconomy/faulty-science-doomism-and-flawed-conclusions-deep-adaptation/

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This episode was first broadcast on September 5th 2022

This year on the show we have taken a closer look at class as a dimension of environmentalism and climate change. With our series Working Class Voices,  we heard real stories and attitudes when it comes to the working class and climate.

Today's show is moving the conversation to look at the dynamics between classes and how that plays out in the struggle for a just, green world.

This week we are  joined by Matthew T. Huber.  Matthew  is a Professor of Geography at the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs at Syracuse University and the author of the new book, Climate Change as Class War: Building Socialism on a Warming Planet.

We discuss how focusing on consumption can blind class analysis of climate change and why individualistic "carbon guilt" stops real action occurring. We also dig into Matthew's critiques of the politics of degrowth and why trade unions need to shape a Green New Deal. 

This interview was recorded on 15th of July 2022

Shout Outs

War on Want appeal to support those affected by the horrendous floods in Pakistan.
https://secure.waronwant.org/page/112424/donate/1

Labour Notes
@labornotes

Links

Matthews book  "Climate Change as Class War" can be bought at Verso.

The grueling working  conditions of the US Solar sector workers

Kim Moody: On New Terrain

Nico Poulantzas 

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This episode was first broadcast on August 8th 2022

The global economy is fundamentally intertwined with the environment and with that climate breakdown. Fastidious bankers, hedge fund managers and capitalists are on the case trying to tackle the end of the world with the only tools they know how to use, finance and profit.

So what happens when models of extraction are used to fix models of extraction?

This week on the show we are delighted to be joined again by Adrienne Buller to discuss her new book "The Value of a Whale". In the book Adrienne critiques the methods of green capitalism as it attempts to save the planet through profit.

We discuss why offsetting encourages damage to ecology, what green economic ideas are the most dangerous, why market approaches to fighting climate change increase injustice and why Adrienne wrote this book to radicalise her mum.

LINKS
Steve Keen on Nordhaus' misleading economics

A history of the world is seven cheap things by Raj Patel

kate sopher on hedonism


Shout outs
Adrienne's editor Tom at Manchester University Press

Jon Moses for the Bristol botanist mass trespass 

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